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Deadly Force

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Rethinking “Show Me Your Hands!”

Officers know that “hands kill” and that they should “watch the hands.” These well-founded concerns are what prompt demands for suspects to “show me your hands!” The irony is that an order to “show me your hands” or “take your hands out of your pockets” may invite the same movement from a compliant suspect as...
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When There’s No Time to Breathe: Expert Focus for Elite Performance

When faced with violence, the police are expected to quickly conduct accurate threat assessments and respond with decisive, measured, and effective use of force. The foundation of this consistent, high-level performance is the ability to operate at the optimal level of arousal; that place between too relaxed and too amped up. Now a growing body...
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New Books Offer Guidance On Career Survival, Deadly Force

Two more new books that hit our desk recently focus on survival, but against life threats of a very different nature. One offers strategies for prevailing against the “hidden” dangers of a law enforcement career, the “true killers” of cops. The other concerns using deadly force to win out against a violent attacker. Read…learn…live! 1....
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Use Of Force “Reform” Will Bring Catastrophe: Police Attorney

Police officers are granted special considerations under current use-of-force laws–a fact that some reformers want to change. If that happens, “the result will be a catastrophic deterioration of law enforcement services and more violent and other crime,” according to a compelling article on police legal rights appearing recently in a magazine for criminal defense attorneys....
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Supreme Court OKs Deadly Force To Stop Dangerous Pursuit

A new Supreme Court decision has been added to the ongoing controversy in law enforcement circles about whether officers should be permitted by policy to shoot at moving vehicles. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that officers were justified in firing fatal rounds at a driver to end a dangerous high-speed chase. Further, the...
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Study Team Urges Deeper Research Into Officers’ Deadly Force Restraint

A research team that includes two former Force Science Certification Course instructors has called on the academic community to launch more studies of why officers overwhelmingly show more restraint than legally necessary when faced with deadly force decisions. In a previous Force Science News [8/15/12] we reported a law enforcement survey of 1,189 police encounters...
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Cops Not Guilty Of Unreasonable Force In Mistaken Killing Of Child Hostage: Appeals Court

An internationally publicized case of a tragic shooting in which Force Science testimony was given has been decided by a California appellate court in favor of the involved officers. Controversial from the beginning, the headline-grabbing case concerned a tense standoff between LAPD SWAT and a drug-deranged father who was holding his 19-month-old daughter in his...
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New Position Paper Links Cognitive Interviewing To “Fair, Objective” OIS Investigations

An unusual collaboration between a former police psychologist, a senior deputy city attorney, and an internationally known researcher has resulted in a new position paper that strongly encourages agencies to use the special techniques of “cognitive interviewing” when taking statements from officers who survive shootings. Interrogating officers in the same traditional manner as criminal suspects...
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Lessons Learned: Practical Tips For Overcoming The Challenges Of An OIS

Part 2 of a 2-part series The suspect Tactical Ofcr. Kurt Kezeske was after had just stabbed his girlfriend in the neck and chest so viciously that when she fled their residence and collapsed in a snow bank, she bled to death in moments. Kezeske shoved open the kitchen door, and there he was, 3...
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Drunk, Drugged, Violence-Prone Suspects Most Likely To Be Shot By Police

An important new study examines officer-involved shootings from a different perspective, focusing not on what police bring to these encounters but on certain behavioral characteristics of the people they most often use deadly force against. The research, based on the shooting experiences of one large sheriff’s department in California, shows that subjects who are under...
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